August 29, 2007
In his Truth, Democracy and Politics article hosted by Tasmanian Times Online Jeff Malpas writes:
The conception of political engagement that Arendt advances – the conception that emphasizes the idea of truth as tied to communication – is essentially one that sees politics as always given over to the recognition of others and to dialogic engagement with others. The political is the realm of common action and speech, but as such, it is also the realm of plurality, a realm in which we speak and act together with others, and in which we must always negotiate between our own opinions and judgments and those of our fellows.
He adds that:
Here truth appears, not as that which stands over against the human, as that which may even be alien to the human, but rather as that from which the human cannot be disentangled. To be human is to recognize the way in which we are already given over to truth through being given over to our engagement with others, and so also to our engagement with the world, that is, with the ordinary, mundane world of our everyday practice. The commitment to truth, which in Arendt is a commitment to the practical and the engaged, is also a commitment to the properly human.
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